Welcome to 'OZ' - The 'Other' Side of the Rainbow!! Some posts may be seen as offensive. Posting is at 10AM and 2PM CST daily. Four days of posts are on the main page. The archives have more. You can forward posts by clicking on the envelope at the bottom of the post. Enjoy your stay! *** If you need to contact me, or have a copyright issue, please use the "Contact The Wizard" form on the right side of 'OZ'. Original source and author is cited and credited in each post where possible. ***

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1. A boy must not sit on a toilet unless he is having a bowel movement. Standing straight up, not hunched over while urinating, is a sign of manliness. Squatting on a toilet seat (especially if he hovers to avoid the urine of others or prissily wipes the seat with a square of toilet tissue) to pee is not only effeminate but a sign of shame! It is a secret hobby that homosexuals use in their daily lives. It is a scientific fact that when needing to use the restroom, a male is called upon to engage in the unpleasant undertaking of extruding a poopy in only 1 out of every 3 visits. But homosexuals use all three visits to practice squatting, to limber the cheeks of their bottom in preparation for even the most enormous (Negro) penises. Such calisthenics are neither necessary nor advisable for men who have no intention of squatting over an engorged penis. As soon as your child is able to walk on two feet, you must make that sure he is taught to stand proudly in front of a private or public toilet seat, and to speak not a word, especially in response to the coy whispers of Catholic priests in the next stall.

2. A boy must eat everything on his plate. But if your son pesters you to serve corn on the cob, hot dogs or sausages, that is your signal to change his diet. Try serving meals that more effectively evoke a hankering for the fragrant delights of the female genitalia. An artichoke stuffed with tuna fish will usually do the trick.

3. A boy must always wear socks, except while swimming. So-called, "flip-flops" and "sandals," where the toes and ankles are exposed are products that were created during the (homo)sexual revolution. Creation research indicates that these types of provocative "shoes," were invented by homosexuals in San Fransissyco during the late 1960's with fetishes for little boy ankles. Thwart the perverted delight of these pedo-pedophiles with a thick pair of tube socks!

4. A boy must not be allowed to watch cartoons of any kind. He should spend Saturday mornings sitting quietly by his Father's side (with a respectful 3" between the male bodies), watching sports that don't involved male leotards. He must watch Football, Basketball, Baseball and Boxing. Soccer is not a sport for civilized people and often results in alarmingly long, uncut penises escaping from very alluring satin shorts. Soccer appeals only to poor, uneducated halflings from underdeveloped countries where the women grow mustaches twice as fast as the men. Make your child aware of this. When there are no sports on TV, take your boy out in the backyard and throw the football or play catch with a very hard baseball. Under no circumstances: wrestle in shorts, especially if your son is strapping, handsome and sporting a noticeably turgid crotch.

5. A boy must not play with dolls. If your boy has a young sister, forbid him from entering her room except for the purposes of the type of ordinary heterosexual experimentation that occurs in any Christian household. If you catch your male child playing with dolls, Landover Baptist Child Psychologists recommended that you shave his head, and sit him out at the end of the driveway with a sign around his neck that says, "I'm a Sissy Boy Who Plays With Dolls – Mailman: Why don't you just go ahead and stick something in my mouth?." This method of prevention has a 99.5% success rate (unless your particular mailman is young and attractive).

6. A boy must not refer to his parents as "Mommy" or "Daddy." As soon as your boy is old enough to speak, he must be taught to call his Mother, "Ma," or "Momma" or "Mommie Dearest." When addressing his Father, he should refer to him as, "Sir," "Dad," or "Commander." "Mommy" and "Daddy" are what fey, spoiled boys weaned on effeminacy coo, embarrassing you in front of the neighbors by never keeping the palms of their hands below their waists.

7. A boy must always wear thick, white underwear. White boxers, and/or briefs are acceptable. Your child must be taught that men who wear colored underwear or undergarments that are cut within one inch of the outer periphery of their pubic region or the trough of the valley between the cheeks of their bottom are either European or Homosexual – and in America there is no difference between the two.

8. A boy must never cry or pout. Crying, pouting or showing feelings are weak and feminine traits. After the natural tears of infancy, brought on by a child's traumatic exit from the spiritual realm of Heaven, to the horrible shock every young man experiences in seeing his very own mother's hairy, dilated vagina, and into this Devil run world we call, "Earth," your boy must be taught to stop crying. It usually takes a normal child several weeks to get over its birth – even when using daily submersions into ice-water.If your child is still crying after three weeks, please drop him off at the Creation Science Laboratory for the remainder of the year and for a determination of whether he is worth having back.

9. A boy must not use brightly colored crayons or any crayons from any colors of a rainbow. Christian parents should remove and destroy any suspiciously colored crayons from their boy's box of Crayolas. This needs no explanation, as we here at Landover Baptist are all familiar with Mr. Crayola's so-called "alternate lifestyle," and his reason for putting "Pansy Pink" and "Engorged Penis Head Purple" into his boxes are quite obvious. A boy must also draw in straight lines. Some curves are fine, but if you suspect your child of "doodling," and see that he is using more curves than straight lines, please call your Pastor immediately.

10. A boy must not skip or prance. You must not allow your boy to attend any school where they teach the children to "skip," or play "hopscotch" in Physical Education class. Creation Scientists have proved that such activities are the precursor to cross-dressing, appreciation for poetry, a sardonic display of irony and the rampant shoplifting of skin care products.

Microsoft teams have confirmed a report of a security issue known as Download.Ject that affects customers using Microsoft Internet Explorer, a component of Microsoft Windows.

When a user visits a Web site hosted on a server that is infected with Download.Ject, the Web pages download a Trojan horse to the user's computer. This Trojan horse is named Backdoor:W32/Berbew, also known as Backdoor-AXJ, Webber, or Padodor. When this Trojan horse runs on the user's computer, it may perform several actions, including monitoring Internet access to capture sensitive information such as logon names and passwords, or opening fake dialog boxes that prompt the user to enter confidential information such as ATM card codes, credit card numbers, or other confidential information. Microsoft has released a tool to help you remove Backdoor:W32/Berbew Trojan horse variants from your computer.

Click here to be taken to Microsoft and run the "Check My PC For Infection". To use this tool, you must be running Windows XP or Windows 2000.

A male pastor walked into a neighborhood pub to use the restroom. The place was hopping with music and dancing, until people saw the pastor. As the room quieted down he walked up to the bartender, and asked, "May I please use the restroom?"

The bartender replied, "I really don't think you should."

"Why not?" the pastor asked. "I really need to use a restroom!"

"Well, I don't think you should. There is a statue of a naked man in there — and he's only covered by a fig leaf!"

"Nonsense," said the pastor, "I'll look the other way!"

So, the bartender showed the clergyman the door at the top of the stairs, and he proceeded to the restroom.

After a few minutes, he came back out, and the whole place was hopping with music and dancing again! He went to the bartender and said, "Sir, I don't understand. When I came in here, the place was hopping with music and dancing. Then the room became absolutely quiet. I went to the restroom, and now the place is hopping again."

"Well, now you're one of us!" said the bartender. "Would you like a drink too?"

"But, I still don't understand," said the puzzled pastor.

"You see," laughed the bartender, "every time the fig leaf is lifted on the statue, the lights go out in the whole place. Now, how about a drink?"

If you are between 18 and 21 and think there is no end to the party listen up. A group of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh say partying hard can lead to harmful effects beyond a hangover.

They found that three healthy adults who developed meningitis, an infection of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord. The researchers say they may have contracted it during a bout of binge drinking and smoking. One of the men died.

U Pitts Dr. Rebecca Finn describe the cases of the three men in the Southern Medical Journal.

Meningitis is usually caused by meningococcal bacteria, often a species known as Neisseria meningitidis.

The incidence of the invasive was uncommon in younger people until the 1990s.

The three men, aged 18 to 21, contracted the infection in May 1999. Public health investigators found that all of the men had attended the same party, and that they were infected with an identical strain of N. meningitidis, which strongly suggests--but does not confirm--that they contracted the infection at the party.

Upper respiratory tract infection and crowding have long been known to be risk factors for meningitis, Finn's team notes. More recently, other factors have also been linked to the disease, including spending time in bars, binge drinking and smoking--passive smoking as well as active smoking.

"The increased risk of invasive meningococcal disease associated with bar patronage is thought to be due to a combination of factors that could facilitate transmission, including crowding, poor ventilation, active and passive smoking, smoking-associated coughing, and the sharing of drinking glasses and cigarettes,'' the authors write

A currently available vaccine could probably have prevented the young men's infection, as well as most other cases of meningococcal infection in this age group.

Friday, July 30, 2004

The Wizard is currently out of disk space. One would think that the All Powerful Wizard of 'OZ' would never have that problem. But alas, even the Wizard must pay his due to Shaw Cable. So....

I am currently looking for free disk space on the web. I believe that it's there somewhere. So in the meantime, please bear with me as I try different web solutions for my problem.

Further down is a post called "Interesting Photos" - the photos reside on Village Photos.com, as earlier I posted them to my Yahoo! Briefcase. Yahoo! insists that only paid accounts can share photos, so I believe that only I can see the pictures on my computer... Cookies, don'tcha know...

So until I get the free webspace I am looking for one of 2 things will happen:

1. I may post more text items2. I may try to post pictures stored elsewhere.

For the pictures stored elsewhere, you may not see them. If you don't, I would appreciate a quick note. Just click on the Teddy Bear at the top left corner of 'OZ'.

He looks like this:

The Wizard really appreciates your feedback.

Yrs,

The Wizard

PS: A Really Big Thank-You To All Of My Reader's! We Should Pass The 3100 Unique Visitor Mark This Weekend!

A second man, Aaron McKinney, was also convicted in the murder that galvanized the nation's gays. McKinney, also is serving two life sentences for the killing.

During their trial the court heard that Henderson and McKinney, both 21 at the time, kidnapped, pistol-whipped, robbed and left Shepard tied to a fence outside Laramie in October 1998. The 21-year-old University of Wyoming student died five days later at a hospital from massive head injuries.

The trial was told that the pair targeted Shepard solely because he was gay.

This column is for all those people who say: "I believe in freedom of speech, but...."

It's a mantra in the gay and lesbian community. We believe in freedom of speech, but... not in outpourings of outrageous hatred. Hatred must be banned.

What crap.

To believe in freedom of speech means protecting the rights of others to speak appalling things. There is no 'but'.

If you believe in a 'but', then accept the consequences of that. Accept that you do not believe in freedom of speech. You believe in censorship.

I believe in freedom of speech.

That means I say more power to shock jock Howard Stern, campaigning hard to get U.S. President George Bush out of office because, under Bush's leadership, the Federal Communications Commission is constantly fining and censoring Stern's bad words until radio stations and signal distributors find him too much of a headache to allow on air.

I believe the government agency that controls broadcasting here in Canada should be nuked out of existence. Last month, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) pulled a Quebec City radio station's license because of repeated offensive comments.

It's the highest rated station in its geographic area. Only in Canada, with its long and honored history of sanctioned state censorship, is the populist drivel of the majority banned from the airwaves.

Then the CRTC approved the Arabic television station Al-Jazeera for rebroadcast in Canada. But only if content is monitored 24 hours a day, and bleeped if offensive (generally anti-Semitic) words or ideas are expressed. No cable or satellite provider is interested in paying for non-stop baby-sitters for Al-Jazeera, so that station is never going to be seen.

In Canada, we stick our fingers in our ears so we aren't exposed to what mainstream Arab society is thinking. So much better than coping with, and understanding, an actual sub-culture and point of view.

I believe that Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel should be allowed to broadcast his loathsome comments about Jews over the Internet.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission regularly orders Zundel's hate-mongering sites off the Internet. Every time he has a new start-up, someone dutifully files a complaint and the human rights commission, with the full support of Canada's ill-named Charter of Rights and Freedoms, carefully places even more tape over Zundel's mouth (creating a friggin' martyr for the cause of Naziism). "It bears repeating that the expression in those documents does nothing to advance the underlying values of freedom of expression," a 2002 commission ruling states. Nowhere is there an understanding of how rational thought has been overwhelmed by the complete illogic of this sentence.

Zundel left Canada for the United States in 2000, but was deported back to Canada three years later. He has since spent more than a year in jail up here, without being convicted. In fact, he has no criminal record.

He's being held on a national security certificate, which means he poses some sort of danger to Canada, but the evidence against him is secret. Zundel is forced to testify at hearings, but doesn't get to see what he's accused of.

Without any proof to the contrary, I can only assume that Zundel has been jailed for speaking what he believes. In Canada, naughty speech has gone from being something that you pay for with ever-increasing monetary fines, and is now something that lands you in jail, with no release date required.

Every Canadian who cares about civil rights should be concerned about Ernst Zundel's fate.

So, to all you but-ists out there: freedom of speech means the whole ball of wax. What's the point of free speech if it only allows mainstream opinions that you personally don't agree with? That's a philosophy that only allows your rigid definition of "acceptable" dissent to prosper. And it keeps you in happy ignorance of the ugliness of life. Ignore reality at your peril.

The next time you find yourself saying "I believe in free speech, but..." stop yourself. Think about what you're saying.

One dark night outside a small town in Minnesota, a fire started inside the local chemical plant and in a blink it exploded into massive flames. The alarm went out to all the fire departments from miles around.

When the volunteer fire fighters appeared on the scene, the chemical company president rushed to the fire chief and said, "All of our secret formulas are in the vault in the center of the plant. They must be saved and will give $50,000 to the fire department that brings them out intact." But the roaring flames held the firefighters off. Soon more fire departments had to be called in as the situation became desperate. As the firemen arrived, the president shouted out that the offer was now $100,000 to the fire department who could bring out the company's secret files.

From the distance, a lone siren was heard as another fire truck came into sight. It was the nearby Norwegian rural township volunteer fire company composed mainly of Norwegians over the age of 65. To everyone's amazement, the little run-down fire engine, operated by these Norwegians, passed all the newer sleek engines parked outside the plant ... and drove straight into the middle of the inferno.

Outside the other firemen watched as the Norwegian old timers jumped off and began to fight the fire with a performance and effort never seen before.

Within a short time, the Norsk old timers had extinguished the fire and saved the secret formulas. The grateful chemical company president joyfully announced that for such a superhuman feat he was upping the reward to $200,000, and walked over to personally thank each of the brave, though elderly, Norsk fire fighters.

The local TV news reporters rushed in after capturing the even on film asking, "What are you going to do with all that money?" "Vell," said Ole Larson, the 70-year-old fire chief, "da furst thing to do is fix da brakes on dat focking truck!"

I have noticed that one of the big things in the spam email I have been receiving lately has been offers for software, such as Windows XP and Office XP, at hugely discounted prices. How can they offer software at these prices?

Signed,

Looking for a deal.

Dear Cheapskate,

First of all... Don't open OR read SPAM! That is almost guaranteed to get you more SPAM!

Second, How can these companies offer these software titles at such great prices and stay in business? The answer is simple, they cannot; at least not with legitimate software. The research I have seen and done indicates that many, if not all, of these offers stem from software that has been copied overseas and hacked so that the installation keys do not have to supplied by the original manufacturers.

This leads to problems for you, the consumer. One of the biggest problems that I have discovered is that you may not be able to use the Windows Update site.

Microsoft checks for legit Product ID's when they are supplying the updates. If they do not find one, the update will not continue.

Not having your software fully up to date makes your computer more susceptible to attack both from viruses as well as hackers and spyware. It can also cause problems later should you have to reinstall the software. You may not be able to because of an expired Product Key.

How can you be sure that the software you are purchasing is legit? The biggest thing you can do is to be sure that you are purchasing the software from a reputable retailer. Odds are that, if you found out about the supplier that you are looking at from a piece of spam email, the supplier is bogus. Stay away!

What can you do if you have been taken in already? If you used a charge card, (a scary thought, assuming the supplier is bogus) you may have recourse through the charge card company. If not, I am sorry to say that there is not much you can do. You will need to simply save up so that you can purchase a legit copy.

If money is a problem, (some of these programs are really expensive) you do have the option of switching to one of the open source suppliers such as Linux for an operating system and Open Office for a word processor suite. Both are really great options and free to download.

Caution is the rule in today's Internet arena. Be careful, even cynical, when considering an offer received from an unsolicited email. Do not fall prey to these swindles. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

IDG News Service (26 Jul 2004)
Antivirus software companies are warning e-mail users about a new version of the MyDoom e-mail worm, dubbed MyDoom.O, which is spreading on the Internet and causing slowdowns at search engines, including those run by Lycos Inc. and Google Inc.

Leading antivirus software companies issued alerts for MyDoom.O, which was first detected Monday and arrives in e-mail message attachments that, when open, install the virus and open a back door that remote attackers can use to access infected machines. While similar to other versions of MyDoom, the O-variant is testing a new approach: using major search engines to harvest e-mail addresses on Web domains that it discovers, slowing those sites, according to Johannes Ullrich, chief technology officer at The SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center.

"The standard scheme is for viruses to look (for e-mail addresses) in the Web cache," he said, referring to the store of previously visited Web pages stored on computer hard drives. But if MyDoom.O finds an e-mail address, in addition to sending a copy of itself to the address, it also does a Web search on the Web domain and uses the search results to discover more addresses in that domain, according to Ullrich.

The worm targets Google, Yahoo, Lycos. The AltaVista search engine owned by Overture Services, Inc. is also a target, according to a statement from Computer Associates International, Inc. The Lycos search engine could not be reached as this story was filed.

Monday, July 26, 2004

IDG News Service (26 Jul 2004)
A rivalry between the creators of the Netsky and Bagle viruses helped cause a dramatic increase in threats against home and enterprise computers in the first half of this year, but the most serious threat was Download.Ject, a Trojan that exploited a vulnerability in Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer Web browser, according to McAfee Inc.

McAfee's Anti-virus and Vulnerability Emergency Response Team (AVERT) ranked Exploit-MhtRedir.gen, also known as Download.Ject or Scob, as the top threat because it was used in a high number of attacks against both enterprises and consumers, took advantage of the widely used Internet Explorer browser and was a new type of threat, said Vincent Gullotto, vice-president of AVERT.

AVERT is releasing on Monday a list of the 10 biggest malicious threats in the first half of this year. For the first time, the company looked at not just the prevalence of the threat in terms of reports from end users, but also special circumstances, Gullotto said. Those included whether the threat hit corporations, whether it represented a new approach and whether a patch was available for it. A war between virus writers, such as the Netsky-Bagle rivalry, is another factor.

Sunday, July 25, 2004

What makes an email notification of a virus attack real vs. what makes it a hoax? I have heard alot about this, and I don't wanna be the one to email a false warning to others in my office.... so how do I tell the difference?

Signed,

Confused on what to say.

Dear Confucious Say,

You've seen them. Those annoying popup windows with a warning that your computer is about to shutdown, or that you just got a virus.

Well, unless you have a Norton anti-virus detector or some other device, and the warning is from the company, you are the victim of a hoax..

Probably the first thing you should notice about a warning is the request to "send this to everyone you know" or some variant of that statement. This should raise a red flag that the warning is probably a hoax. No real warning message from a credible source will tell you to send this to everyone you know.

Next, look at what makes a successful hoax. There are two known factors that make a successful hoax, they are:

(1) technical sounding language.
(2) credibility by association.

If the warning uses the proper technical jargon, most individuals, including technologically savvy individuals, tend to believe the warning is real. For example, the Good Times hoax says that "...if the program is not stopped, the computer's processor will be placed in an nth-complexity infinite binary loop which can severely damage the processor...". The first time you read this, it sounds like it might be something real. With a little research, you find that there is no such thing as an nth-complexity infinite binary loop and that processors are designed to run loops for weeks at a time without damage.

When I say credibility by association I am referring to who sent the warning. If the janitor at a large technological organization sends a warning to someone outside of that organization, people on the outside tend to believe the warning because the company should know about those things. Even though the person sending the warning may not have a clue what he is talking about, the prestige of the company backs the warning, making it appear real. If a manager at the company sends the warning, the message is doubly backed by the company's and the manager's reputations.

Both of these items make it very difficult to claim a warning is a hoax so you must do your homework to see if the claims are real and if the person sending out the warning is a real person and is someone who would know what they are talking about. Do this before sending a warning. You do need to be a little careful verifying the person as the apparent author may be a real person who has nothing to do with the hoax. If thousands of people start sending them mail asking if the message is real, that essentially constitutes an unintentional denial of service attack on that person. Check the person's web site or the person's company web site to see if the hoax has been responded to there.

Clothes that are dried outside DO smell better because of a process called photolysis. What happens is this: sunlight breaks down compounds in the laundry that cause odor, such as perspiration and body oils.

Back in the mid to late 80's, an IBM compatible computer wasn't considered a hundred percent compatible unless it could run Microsoft's Flight Simulator, probably because of the fact that it is one of the hardest programs to get running.

If you stand in the bottom of a well, you would be able to see the stars even in the daytime.

Well, now......here's something I never knew before, and I feel compelled to send it on to my more intelligent friends in the hope that they, too, will feel edified.

Isn't history more fun when you know something about it?

Giving the Finger

Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French, anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English soldiers. Without the middle finger it would be impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore they would be incapable of fighting in the future.

This famous weapon was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew" (or "pluck yew").

Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the defeated French, saying, "See, we can still pluck yew!"

"PLUCK YEW!"

Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodental fricative 'F', and thus the words often used in conjunction with the one-finger-salute!

It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows used with the longbow that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird."

Saturday, July 24, 2004

I have heard of this term WYSIWYG. I am curious what does it stand for?

Signed,

George.

Dear Curious George,

For web content creators who are new to HTML or who are somewhat familiar with its purpose but don't have a use reference handy without leaving their task (hint: this is most of the web, millions and millions), WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), pronounced "Whizz-E-Wig", editing is a boon. Microsoft Front Page is an example of a WYSIWYG HTML editor. You type text and insert pictures just like using Microsoft Word. In the background the editor is quietly creating HTML text, (a LOT of text), that web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Netscape and Opera decode and present your page almost exactly as you designed it.

For those creators who are familiar with simple uses of HTML styling like bold, italics and hyperlinks but who would like more stylistic control over their content (hint: this is a significant number, and perhaps a majority, of users in the "participatory web") then mixed-mode WYSIWYG and additional style controls like making bulleted lists or changing the horizontal alignment or adding keyboard shortcuts can reduce the number of mistakes, reduce the amount of information needed to be retrieved during an editing task that is outside the scope of that task, and generally reduce the time and effort it takes to generate content.

For content creators who require more advanced styling controls and content information including positioning, page counts, floating elements, templates, varied encodings, and block-level margins and padding there are many tools available that they prefer using to a browser. I know for sure because I've asked and asked and asked and, to date, advanced content creators find the convenience and ubiquity of browser-use less useful than using a feature-rich client. Additionally, many advanced content creators (hint: if you're reading this, I'm very likely talking about you :) know enough HTML and CSS that hand-coding style attributes and class selectors enables you to create content faster than when using WYSIWYG components for the same tasks.

Only in America.....do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

Only in America......do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke.

Only in America......do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.

Only in America......do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.

Only in America......do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.

Only in America......do we use the word 'politics' to describe the process so well: 'Poli' in Latin meaning 'many' and 'tics' meaning 'bloodsucking creatures'.

Only in America......do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering.

EVER WONDER ....

Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin?
Why women can't put on mascara with their mouth closed?
Why don't you ever see the headline "Psychic Wins Lottery"?
Why is "abbreviated" such a long word?
Why is it that doctors call what they do "practice"?
Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?
Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?
Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food?
Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?
You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes? Why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff?!
Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?
Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?

In Jamaican patois slang, "batty man" and "chi chi man" are the equivalent of "poof" and "faggot."

Beenie Man has dueted with Janet Jackson and Missy Elliott and is trying to break into the lucrative US pop market.

In a recent interview he defended the homophobic content in his music saying it reflects Jamaican culture.

"The music reflects how Jamaican people see it," he said. "I think there are things that are a part of Caribbean culture just like any other culture in the world. Everybody has their way of life. People have beliefs and that comes from who they are. The music come from that."

Last month, Jamaica's most notable gay civil rights leader was brutally murdered in his home.

A Beenie Man concert scheduled for London several weeks later was cancelled following a protest by British gay rights group Outrage. When the singer arrived at the airport he was questioned by British police but allowed to enter the country.

Friday, Outrage called on American gay rights groups to put pressure on the venues which had booked Beenie Man to perform.

"No one would give a platform to a singer who advocated killing black or Jewish people," said Outrage spokesperson Peter Tatchell in a statement.

"A performer who brazenly glorifies and encourages the murder of lesbians and gay men should not be rewarded with concerts and financial success.”

"Securing the cancellation of Beenie Man’s concert is very important. By hitting him in the pocket, it will help pressure Beenie Man and other anti-gay Jamaican singers to abandon their murderous incitements," Tatchell said.

Friday, July 23, 2004

Please forgive me for disturbing your work day, but I believe this very quick test will help you determine what your next steps should be for your health.

God speed.

When you click on the link at the bottom, it will open a webpage which has two identical dolphins on it. It was used in a case study on stress levels at St. Mary's Hospital.

Look at both dolphins jumping out of the water.

The closely monitored study revealed that although the dolphins are identical, a person under stress would find differences between them. It means that a person who finds many differences between the dolphins is experiencing a great amount of stress.

Click below and please examine the photograph carefully, and if you find more than one or two differences, you may want to take a vacation.

I have a single computer that everyone in my house uses. I want to keep their prying eyes out of my personal files. I already made their accounts 'Limited Account', (I have Windows XP Home Edition), but they still have access to my 'Documents' etc. I know this as one of my room-mates accidentally deleted one of my term papers.

Is there any way to fix this?

Signed,

Worried.

Dear Worry Wart,

Firstly, from the way you signed your name, can I also assume that maybe you are doing some surfing or also have pictures in your 'private' files? You naughty boy! I have a solution for you!

Use The NTFS File System

Most home users of Windows XP have the Home Edition which was installed by the maker of your PC. However, most installations are installed using the FAT32 file system vs. the NTFS file system. Following are the instructions to convert your file system from FAT or FAT32 to NTFS - superior stability and security are only a few clicks away:

A large percentage of home computer users probably have no idea what a file system is. The file system is what the operating system uses to structure and retrieve the data on your hard drives.

Without going into all of the gory details, old DOS systems and the first Windows systems used FAT (short for File Allocation Table). When Windows 98 came out (or Windows 95 with OSR2) Microsoft added support for FAT32 (for the 32-bit version of FAT) which allowed support for larger disk sizes and used less space to store data by using smaller cluster sizes. It also replaced the old 8.3 naming convention and allowed file names up to 256 characters long.

When Microsoft introduced Windows NT (New Technology), they included a new type of file system- NTFS (NT File System). NTFS was designed to be more stable and reliable.

It uses a transaction log to allow it to recover in the event of a crash and supports the ability to span data across more than one hard drive for redundancy in the event that a disk drive fails.

The area of NTFS that we are concerned with most though is how it impacts security. FAT and FAT32 have no inherent security at all. While it is possible to share a directory over the network from a Windows system using FAT32 everyone will be able to open, edit or delete the data contained in that shared folder. NTFS provides the ability to protect individual files as well as folders and restrict which users are allowed access. Additionally, it is possible to grant some users access to simply view the files while granting others the ability to modify or delete the files as well. This more granular level of control provides significantly better security than a FAT32 or FAT-based system.

If you have a dual-boot system that still uses Windows 98 or another Windows 9x system you will need to leave that operating system on a FAT or FAT32 drive as well as any programs or data that you want to access while using that operating system. Other machines on your network will be able to interact with your shared drives and access data that you allow them to whether their system is capable of using NTFS or not, but when you boot the local system into Windows 98 it will be unable to read or access any programs or data on an NTFS drive.

If you upgraded from a previous version of Windows or even just installed Windows XP without stopping to consider your options there is a good chance your system is using FAT32 right now. You can find out what file system you are using on your drives by right-clicking the drive in Windows EXPlorer or My Computer and selecting Properties. The File System of the drive will be listed along with other information about the drive. If you don't have a need for FAT32 and find a drive that is not NTFS you should perform the following steps to convert your drive(s) to NTFS:

Before starting this BACK-UP your important files! If there is an interruption in the power during the conversion ALL will be lost!

NOTE: This is a one-way ticket. The convert utility from Microsoft will only convert from FAT or FAT32 to NTFS- not the other way around. If you need to convert an NTFS drive to FAT or FAT32 you will need a 3rd-party product such as Partition Magic from Symantec (formerly Powerquest purchased by Symantec in December of 2003).

The system will re-boot when its done and voila! NTFS.

Now it is a simple matter of right clicking the files or folder, choosing 'Properties' and then click on the 'Security' Tab, and putting a check in the box marked: "Make this folder private.'"

That should do it. If you are unsure or not wanting to take the chance that something can go wrong, you may also take your PC back to where you purchased it and have them make the change, however, it is within your grasp to do it.

Hope this helps.

Yrs,

The Wizard

Final Note: Since NTFS has heavy security built into it, be sure to create a second account with "Administrator" Priveledges, in case you get locked out. I have had a friend who did the conversion and promptly locked himself out of his own computer. Guess what he had to do. Yep! Reformat the computer (erases everything!), and re- install everything. NTFS security settings (From within the Administrator Tools, is not to be played with or taken lightly! It is part of the MMC, (Microsoft Management Console) and other than viewing the 'Event Viewer', only XPerienced computer users should use these tools.

Thursday, July 22, 2004

1. WILL THE REAL DUMMY PLEASE STAND UP? AT&T fired President John Walter after nine months, saying he lacked intellectual leadership. He received a $26 million severance package. Perhaps it's not Walter who's lacking intelligence.

2. WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS: Police in Oakland, CA spent two hours attempting to subdue a gunman who had barricaded himself inside his home. After firing ten tear gas canisters, officers discovered that the man was standing beside them in the police line, shouting, "Please come out and give yourself up."

3. WHAT WAS PLAN B??? An Illinois man, pretending to have a gun, kidnapped a motorist and forced him to drive to two different automated teller machines, wherein the kidnapper proceeded to withdraw money from his own bank accounts.

4. THE GETAWAY! A man walked into a Topeka, Kansas Kwik Stop and asked for all the money in the cash drawer. Apparently, the take was too small, so he tied up the store clerk and worked the counter himself for three hours until police showed up and grabbed him.

5. DID I SAY THAT??? Police in Los Angeles had good luck with a robbery suspect who just couldn't control himself during a lineup. When detectives asked each man in the lineup to repeat the words: "Give me all your money or I'll shoot", the man shouted, "that's not what I said!".

6. ARE WE COMMUNICATING??? A man spoke frantically into the phone: "My wife is pregnant and her contractions are only two minutes apart". "Is this her first child?" the doctor asked. "No!" the man shouted, "This is her husband!"

7. NOT THE SHARPEST TOOL IN THE SHED! In Modesto, CA, Steven Richard King was arrested for trying to hold up a Bank of America branch without a weapon. King used a thumb and a finger to simulate a gun. Unfortunately, he failed to keep his hand in his pocket. (hellooooooo)!

8. THE GRAND FINALE!!! Last summer, down on Lake Isabella, located in the high desert, an hour east of Bakersfield, CA, some folks, new to boating, were having a problem. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't get their brand new 22 foot boat, going. It was very sluggish in almost every maneuver, no matter how much power they applied. After about an hour of trying to make it go, they putted into a nearby marina, thinking someone there may be able to tell them what was wrong. A thorough topside check revealed everything in perfect working condition. The engine ran fine, the out-drive went up and down, and the propeller was the correct size and pitch. So, one of the marina guys jumped in the water to check underneath. He came up choking on water, he was laughing so hard.

NOW REMEMBER...THIS IS TRUE.
Under the boat, still strapped securely in place, was the trailer!

As the 9/11 commission releases its final report this week, one thing I keep pondering is: Are George W. Bush and Prince Bandar more than just friends? You see, if we were to use the Republican logic regarding men who touch one another in public, then we'd have to conclude that W. is getting it on big time with the men of the Saudi royal family. For those among you who just refuse to believe that Bush and company have been soft on the Saudis because of their business interests, which they also thought would benefit from their invasion of Iraq—Michael Moore's critique, even some of the most "liberal" critics say, is crass and simplistic—then maybe it would make more sense to believe that Bush and Bandar are simply in love. Schoolgirls with crushes.

That, after all, seems to be the conservative-hack explanation for why John Kerry and John Edwards touch a lot in public. It was pretty laughable when right-wing pundits began a campaign two weeks ago to demonize men who touch one another. Those Northern-elite Democrats are wusses who like to fondle one another, was the subtext, as opposed to Dick "go fuck yourself" Cheney and rancher-wannabe Bush. Like their male colleagues, women in politics hug and kiss in public all the time—including Republican women, like Liddy Dole, who likes getting real close with Bush when she can. But men who touch, according to the latest right-wing smear, must either be carrying on something more during their off time or are using back-patting and forearm-grabbing for political reasons.

"These buff and manly Johns are only following instructions to demonstrate warmth—cuddly warmth though it may be—to contrast with the chilly Republican images projected by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who keep their legs crossed and their hands to themselves at all times," wrote Wesley Pruden, editor of the homo-hating, Moonie-owned Washington Times. "No one imagines George W. inspecting Dick Cheney's cheek for razor burn in anticipation of a friendly kiss to greet the day. The president, after all, is the scion of generations of reserved and genteel WASP breeding, and the veep is a man from Wyoming, where the wrong kind of familiarity can invite a swift and fatal case of lead poisoning."

It was the often-wrong cyber-gossip Matt Drudge—from whom right-wing pundits often get their talking points from, and who in turn seems to get his talking points straight from Karl Rove—who began all this talk about the candidates getting physical, showing photos on his website of them being affectionate and citing unnamed sources in the media who were marveling at the supposed caressing. Drudge obviously has a problem with men touching one another in public—he'd rather they do it private, behind closet doors—and was therefore open to furthering the claim. As usual, Drudge and the conservative pundits—from Sean Hannity to Tony Snow, who implored Kerry and Edwards to "get a room"—inserted the insinuation pretty far in the lazy, sensation-driven media, landing it on CNN, and in turn on late-night comedy shows. The larger intent of Republican operatives, beyond alleging that Kerry and Edwards are cynically using physical contact as a political tactic, is to imply that the Democratic contenders are nancy boys—effeminate and weak, including on terrorism—and maybe even offer a reason as to why they're not harder on same-sex marriage, which supposed macho-guy Bush has railed against.

But if hand-holding, shoulder-grasping and cheek-to-cheek kissing are indicative of something sinister, then what are we to make of all of Bush's physical moments with the Saudi potentates? There he is on the cover of Craig Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud, holding hands with Crown Prince Abdullah. And thanks to Moore, we witness a montage of shots in Fahrenheit 9/11 showing W. and Daddy Bush getting mighty physical with those soft-on-terrorism Saudi leaders.

So if we're not to believe that all of this affection—and the fact that Prince Bandar was at the White House for an intimate dinner days after several of his countrymen flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and after members of the bin Laden family jetted out of the U.S. to safety—is not because of the Bush family's business interests, then it's got to be love. And maybe blind love, and not the oil business, caused the Bushies to lie about WMD and take us into war.

The 9/11 commission, in its final report this week, says there may have been a collaborative relationship between al Qaeda and Iran, and the commission's co-chair, Thomas Keene, says that the connections between bin Laden's terrorist group and Iranian and Pakistani officials are much more evident than any imagined connection to Saddam Hussein. Reports surfaced over last weekend that several of the 9/11 hijackers got through both Iran and Saudi Arabia en route from the terror camps in Afghanistan without having their passports stamped. Funny how the response of the Bush administration wasn't to crack down on Saudi Arabia, but rather to go after Saddam Hussein in oil-rich Iraq, where the Bushies and the Saudis could coincidentally expand their joint business interests. I guess that's how love works. Isn't the nuzzling and caressing between Bush and Bandar a lot more dangerous than any supposed political strategy of warm feelings and physical contact on the part of Kerry and Edwards?

(Toronto, Ontario) The Canadian government announced late Wednesday afternoon that it would not oppose same-sex couples who seek to divorce.

Same-sex marriage is legal in four Canadian jurisdictions but when a relationship ends severing the ties that bound is uncharted territory as two Toronto women discovered.

Judges in Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec and the Yukon have struck down the federal definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman, but, Canadian divorce laws remain unchanged.

Two Toronto women are now before Ontario's Superior Court of Justice in what is believed to be Canada's first gay divorce petition.

The women, identified in court documents only as M.M. and J.H., got married on June 18, 2003, a week after the Ontario Court of Appeal legalized same-sex marriage. They had been together for five years but the marriage did not work and they separated just five days after their wedding.

Julie Hannaford, the lawyer representing J.H., is using the same arguments that won the right for same-sex couples to marry in her fight for divorce rights.

In a supporting court document M.M. says that "same-sex couples are entitled to the equal respect, recognition and benefit of the law, including all family-law rights and obligations guaranteed to heterosexual couples."

The court is being asked to grant the divorce and issue an order that the Canadian Divorce Act definition of "spouse" as " a man or woman who are married to each other," is unconstitutional and offensive to their equality rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The federal government originally sought to have the case set aside until after the Supreme Court makes its recommendations on how to proceed with legislation to permit same-sex marriage across the country. This is not expected until fall.

Hundreds of laws affecting marriage that still define it as a union between a man and a woman will need to be amended.

The judge in the case of M.M. and J.H refused to delay the hearing. It is now set for mid September. Following that ruling the federal government announced it would not seek a delay from a higher court.

This will help end the legal vacuum that exists around some aspects of equal marriage for same-sex couples,” said Laurie Arron, Political Coordinator for Canadians for Equal Marriage.

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Recently we have implemented Windows 2003 Active Directory from NT 4.0 in which my NT DNS servers forwarded to our ISP's DNS servers for external name resolution. I still do that with our AD DNS servers and am starting to see problems.

My proposed solution is to implement DNS servers on the DMZ that do the forwarding to the ISP. However, for internal name resolution, I was going to use a split DNS configuration on the TCP/IP properties of the clients, with the first DNS server as the internal AD server and the secondary and tertiary DNS as the DNS forwarding servers in the DMZ.

Would this be an optimal configuration or would it pose performance and security problems?

Also, should the DMZ caching servers forward to my ISP's DNS servers, let them cache from the root servers, or both?

-- A.J.

Dear Apple Juice,

Here's the problem I see with your proposed configuration. If the clients can't get access to the primary server (which hosts the SRV records for Active Directory), they'll fall back on a public server that doesn't have these records. This can cause authentication and other problems that would be difficult to diagnose.

A better solution would be to maintain two DNS servers in the private network, both of which forward to the caching server in the DMZ. If you use AD-integrated DNS zones, you can use the second domain controller as the second DNS server.

The caching server in the DMZ should only forward to your ISP. It should not have root hints and should not be authoritative for your public DNS domain.

A virus designed to demonstrate security holes in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows CE operating system but not to cause damage was identified by security companies over the weekend.

The WinCE4.Duts.A virus (sometimes known as Dust) only affects devices running ARM Ltd. processors and infects Pocket PC PE files in the root directory, according to Bucharest-based Softwin S.R.L., which first reported the virus on Saturday.

It raises a dialogue box which asks "Dear User, am I allowed to spread?" If the user agrees, the virus appends itself to all .EXE files not already infected in the current directory, according to antivirus vendor Symantec Corp.

A jumbo jet is just coming into the Toronto Airport on its final approach. The pilot comes on the intercom, "This is your Captain. We're on our final descent into Toronto. I want to thank you for flying with us today and I hope you enjoy your stay in Toronto".

He forgets to switch off the intercom, and the whole plane can hear his conversation with his co-pilot.

The copilot says to the pilot, "Well, skipper, watcha gonna do in Toronto?"

"Well," says the skipper, "first I'm gonna check into the hotel and take a big crap . . . . .then I'm gonna take that new stewardess with the huge tits out for dinner . . . . . then I'm gonna wine and dine her, take her back to my room and put it to her big time all night long!"

Everyone on the plane hears this and immediately begins looking up and down the isles trying to get a look at the new stewardess. Meanwhile the new stewardess is at the very back of the plane. She's so embarrassed that she tries to run to the cockpit to turn the intercom off. Halfway down the aisle, she trips over an old lady's bag and falls on her face.

The old lady leans over and says: "No need to hurry,dear. He's gonna take a shit first."

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About The Wizard...

I was born September 12, 1962 in St. Boniface, MB Canada. I live in Saskatoon, SK. I have one child, a son, of whom I am incredibly proud. I attended Royal school in Charleswood and after a couple of years at St. Paul's High School, I graduated from Shaftesbury High. I attended Red River Community College in Winnipeg and received a certificate in Business Administration, with a Major in Marketing and Management. I attended the University of Manitoba, earning multiple certifications in LAN Administration and industry credentials from Novell, (CNA); Microsoft, (MCP); and CompTia, (A+). February 25, 2002 was an important turning point in my life and I was re-born.

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Dwell not on the past. Use it to illustrate a point, then leave it behind. Nothing really matters except what you do now in this instant of time. From this moment onward you can be an entirely different person, filled with love and understanding, ready with an outstretched hand, uplifted and positive in every thought and deed. --Eileen Caddy